Old hands, Estancia Telken (and a
Comet).

The waves look and sound like the sea, but it is a
lake. It's called Largo Buenos Aires, but it's no where near
Buenos Aires.

However it is a good free place to park just off RN43 between
Perito Moreno in Argentina and the Chilean border at Chile
Chico (S46.605022 W71.218755).

We (Mel and Mog) are parked here to eat up all our meat, fruit and
vegetables that will otherwise be confiscated when we enter Chile
tomorrow.

Two highlights of the otherwise fairly boring 600km drive north
from El Chalten have been the Cueva de las Manos
(Cave of the hands) and Estancia Telken.

The Cueva de las Manos is a UNESCO World Heritage
site about 20km east of RN40 set in a spectacular canyon. Access from the
south requires a 47km drive from RN40 that ends a few hundred
metres from the caves. Access from the north requires only a
25km drive, but you have to leave your vehicle about 3km from the caves
on the other side of the canyon!

The caves themselves are not spectacular but the art is. By far
the most common image is that of a human left hand (there are a few right hands
and one human foot print). The hand-prints are negative, and were made by
blowing or spitting "paint" (probably through a hollow bone) at the rock whilst
protecting the rock with the hand. In some cases the rock was "painted" one
colour first then a second colour was "sprayed" over a hand.

Although the images date back about 9,300 years, the almost
irresistible impression is that they were done a few weeks ago by an
unimaginative, but persistent, vandal with three aerosol paint cans (red, black
and white).

More recent images include human figures and guanaco hunting
scenes.

We also spent a night at Estancia Telken (S46.813878
W70.808378).

Estancia Telken was solely a sheep farm for decades,
until a volcanic eruption in Chile (in 1991, 160km away) deposited a layer of
ash on their land that resulted in the death of most of their sheep. Since then
Petti and Coco Nauta have diversified into tourism.

The estancia offers rooms, camping ($5USA per person
per night), meals ($20USA for a substantial evening meal) and horse riding. The
estancia also has a lake (good for bird watching) and a small cave
with a few "hands" if you missed the big one.

Our evening meal was served family-style with Petti and Coco at
the heads of the table, making us feel as if we were back at home having a
delicious home-cooked Sunday dinner.Recommended.

And finally the comet. For the last few nights we have been
watching a very impressive comet visible between 23:00 and 03:30 each night in
the south. Because we have not seen any English language newspapers or TV, we
don't know if it is an expected comet, a new one or even on a collision course
with earth!

Although very spectacular to look at, we have not yet taken a
photograph worthy of these web pages (even with a lot of PhotoShop work).
But we have been sent one!

Stephen
Stewart.

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last changed on 2007-01-31This page contains the latitude and longitude
(from GPS using WGS84 Datum) of places of interest.